Today in History for Sept. 2:
On this date:
In 1666, "The Great Fire" of London started in a wooden house on Pudding Lane. The fire burned for three days, destroying about 13,200 houses, some bridges and a number of churches and public buildings -- including St. Paul's Cathedral. About 200,000 people were left homeless and six died. The fire is credited with founding the institution of fire insurance.
In 1670, Port Royal, Acadia, was returned to France following the Treaty of Breda.
In 1752, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in England.
In 1758, the first Anglican service of worship to be held on Canadian soil was led by Rev. Robert Wolfall at Frobisher Bay, on Baffin Island.
In 1837, Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of his magnetic telegraph.
In 1901, U.S. Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair.
In 1904, the voyage of Capt. John Claus Voss of Victoria, B.C., from Canada to England in a Nootka Indian dugout canoe, ended. Voss took three years, three months and 12 days to cover 64,000 kilometres under sail, almost circumnavigating the globe. His canoe, "The Tilicum," is on display in Victoria. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society to honour his accomplishment.
In 1909, the Scarborough Beach Park, in suburban Toronto, hosted North America's first air show. However, the American plane, "The Flyer," was forced to make an emergency landing in Lake Ontario seconds after taking off.
In 1912, the first Calgary Stampede began. It was instigated by Guy Weadick, an American trick roper who thought Calgary would be a prime location for a big rodeo. The Stampede, which takes place every July, is one of the largest rodeos in the world.
In 1918, Canadian troops cracked Germany's supposedly impregnable Hindenburg Line at two locations in the final stage of the First World War.
In 1930, French aviators Captain Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte completed the first non-stop Paris-to-New York flight in just over 37 hours.
In 1945, the Second World War officially ended when Japan formally surrendered to the Allies aboard the American battleship "Missouri" in Tokyo Bay.
In 1947, the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, establishing the first peacekeeping alliance under the UN charter, was signed by 19 western countries.
In 1958, Henry Verwoerd became prime minister of South Africa. The Dutch-born Verwoerd transformed apartheid into an effective way of ensuring white domination in the country. He was assassinated in parliament in 1966 by a half-white, half-black legislative page whose intended marriage was thwarted by Verwoerd's segregation laws.
In 1963, "The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite" expanded from 15 to 30 minutes, becoming network television's first half-hour nightly newscast.
In 1965, the Cultural Revolution began in China.
In 1969, the first automatic teller machine (ATM) to utilize magnetic-striped cards was opened to the public at Chemical Bank in New York. (Called a "Docuteller," it was developed by Donald C. Wetzel.)
In 1972, the Soviet Union beat an NHL All-Star team 7-3 in Montreal to open their eight-game Summit Series. Canada rallied to win the series (4-3-1) on three consecutive game-winning goals by Paul Henderson in Moscow.
In 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien, English Christian language scholar and novelist, died at age 81. His 1954-55 "Lord of the Rings" trilogy describes a war between good and evil in which evil is routed through courage and sacrifice.
In 1979, a hurricane battered the Bahamas, leaving a reported 640 people dead.
In 1986, back-up singer Cathy Evelyn Smith, a native of Burlington, Ont., was sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the 1982 drug overdose death of comedian John Belushi.
In 1995, seven British military airmen were killed when their RAF Nimrod jet slammed into Lake Ontario at the CNE airshow in Toronto.
In 1997, the people of Newfoundland voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to support the government's plan to end the control of churches from the education system.
In 1998, Swissair flight 111 carrying 229 passengers and crew crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Peggy's Cove, N.S. The plane -- en route from New York to Geneva -- was attempting an emergency landing at Halifax after the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit. All those aboard were killed.
In 1998, a United Nations war-crimes tribunal for Rwanda made history, becoming the first international court to hand down a conviction for genocide and ruling that rape can be considered an attack meant to destroy a people. The ruling was in the case of a former Rwandan mayor accused of inciting the murder of 2,000 Tutsis.
In 2001, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, 78, died of a heart attack while vacationing in Cyprus. He performed the first successful human heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1967.
In 2001, the Montreal subway system was shut down after an unidentified male set off a tear-gas canister inside a subway station. Fifty people were treated in hospital while another 150 were treated outside the downtown Berri-UQAM station.
In 2006, Cleveland Indians' Kevin Kouzmanoff became the first player in major league history to hit a grand slam on the very first pitch he saw as a big leaguer.
In 2008, Bill Melendez, the animator who gave life to Snoopy, Charlie Brown and other "Peanuts" characters in scores of movies and TV specials, died. He was 91. Melendez's nearly seven decades as a professional animator began in 1938 when he was hired by Walt Disney Studios and worked on Mickey Mouse cartoons and classic animated features such as "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia." He went on to animate TV specials such as "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and was the voice of Snoopy, who never spoke intelligible words but issued expressive howls, sighs and sobs.
In 2008, Deere & Co., the world's largest maker of farm machinery, closed its factory in Welland, Ont., costing the Ontario economy 800 manufacturing jobs. The company said that strong Canadian dollar was to blame for the closure.
In 2008, astronaut Steve MacLean was named the new head of the Canadian Space Agency. He served aboard the shuttles "Columbia" and "Atlantis." (He resigned in February 2013.)
In 2009, in a settlement announced by the U.S. Justice Department, Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, would pay a record US$2.3 billion civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions, including the largest criminal fine in U.S. history - $1.2 billion.
In 2009, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that a law banning hate on the Internet is unconstitutional because it infringes on free speech. The decision meant the tribunal would no longer police Internet hate speech.
In 2013, on her fifth try, U.S. endurance swimmer Diana Nyad, 64, became the first person to swim the treacherous waters from Cuba to Key West, Fla., without the aid of a shark cage. The 177-kilometre journey took her 53 hours.
In 2016, Samsung Electronics recalled all of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after finding batteries in some of the flagship gadgets exploded or caught fire. (In October, Samsung announced it was stopping production of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones permanently.)
In 2018, The 200-year-old National Museum of Brazil was gutted by a fire that broke out after it closed for the day. It had housed 20 million items, thousands of them irreplaceable, but most of the skull of a 12,000 year old fossil nicknamed Luzia was later found in the debris. The oldest human fossil ever found in Latin America was among the museum's most prized possessions.
In 2019, police in southern California said 34 people were presumed dead in a fire aboard a dive boat. After recovering the bodies of 20 of the victims, they suspended the search operation. Divers had seen four to six other bodies in the sunken wreckage of the Conception, but the boat had to be stabilized before they could be recovered. DNA was to be used to identify the victims -- most of whom were sleeping below deck when fire broke out before dawn. Five crew members sleeping on the boat's top deck jumped off and took a dinghy to safety.
In 2019, Canada's Bianca Andreescu (an-DRESS'-koo) toppled American Taylor Townsend 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows. The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., is the first Canadian woman to reach the quarter-finals at the U.S. Open in almost 30 years.
In 2020, the German government said Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in his system — the same one that was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain in 2018. Navalny's supporters insisted he was deliberately poisoned and pointed the finger at the Kremlin, which scoffed at the accusations.
In 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed any notion of replacing Governor General Julie Payette. During an interview in Vancouver, Trudeau said no one wants to add a constitutional crisis on top of the COVID-19 pandemic. He called Payette an excellent representative for the Queen. Payette had become the focus of intense scrutiny after allegations surfaced of workplace harassment in her office, as well as reports of extraordinary spending since she was named governor general. (Payette resigned in January 2021 after an independent review of harassment allegations was completed.)
In 2020, Canadian sculptor Mark Prent died at the age of 72. Prent was known for his unsettling, otherworldly sculptures. Toronto police attempted to shut down his first solo show in 1973 in response to a complaint from a public morality organization. Prent's surreal vision won him several fans in the film scene, including directors Guillermo Del Toro, David Cronenberg and Harmony Korine.
In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden lambasted the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision not to block a new Texas law banning most abortions in the state. He said he was directing federal agencies to do what they could to "insulate women and providers'' from the impact. It was the strongest abortion curb since the high court legalized the procedure a half-century ago.
In 2021, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole outlined his plan for closer trade and diplomatic ties with Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. O'Toole said the proposed deal would reduce trade barriers, increase intelligence co-operation and make it easier for Canadians to study and work within the new free-trade zone. He says a Conservative government would also make it harder for "state-owned companies from non-free countries'' to buy Canadian firms.
In 2021, four federal party leaders went head-to-head in the first broadcast debate of the campaign. The French-language debate on Quebec's TVA came at the midpoint of that campaign. The leaders covered a trio of top topics: the pandemic, social issues and economic recovery.
In 2021, Mexican boxer Jeanette Zacarias Zapata died following a recent fight in Montreal. Quebec Public Security Minister Genevieve Guilbault offered her condolences to the family of the 18-year-old Zapata, who died in hospital from injuries she suffered during her match with Quebecer Marie-Pier Houle.
In 2022, at least 18 people were killed and 21 others wounded in an explosion at a crowded mosque in Herat, Afghanistan. The blast, which happened during noon prayers, killed a prominent cleric who was known across Afghanistan for his criticism of the country's western-backed governments.
In 2022, eight people were sent to hospital after an explosion at a refinery in Come By Chance, N.L., owned by Braya Renewable Fuels.
In 2022, Serena Williams, weeks away from her 41st birthday, lost what was expected to be the last match of her tennis career. The 23-time Grand Slam champion was eliminated from the U.S. Open in the third round by Ajla Tomljanovic before an electric crowd in New York.
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The Canadian Press